Five Non Fiction Books to Read and Love

Do you enjoy non fiction? Do you enjoy books that take a hard look at our civilization but in a way that you can’t put them down? Here are five of my “go to” books, books I’ve read countless times and are full of underlines and—let's be real—wine stains. If you read my book on vanlife, No Signal, you know all about me staying up late in the front seat of my van, reading by lantern light, and drinking wine. Often I would be reading one of these five books. They are not in order of preference, I love them all.

American Nomads by Richard Grant

I can’t recommend this writer enough, especially God’s Middle Finger and American Nomads. The latter book is about the restless, the wanderers, the nomads. Richard spends time with rodeo cowboys, hitchhikers, and truck drivers, trying to get to the bottom of why these people need to keep moving. The author is English, so you have the bonus of a “foreigner” looking at this crazy place we call the United States, how the sheer size of this country is made for travel and exploration.

Nomadland by Jessica Bruder

They are not homeless, they are houseless—big difference. Jessica explores the live of a handful of people living out of vehicles be they vans or travel trailers; either because they prefer a life on the road or, more often, because they can no longer afford the “stick and brick” world. This book is eight years old, but it has only become more timely: More and more people can not afford a house or even an apartment, this is more of a thing among retired people. You’ll love the characters in this story; they’re real people but they are also characters. I would recommend this book before the movie. The movie is good, but it’s a movie, if you know what I mean. The cliff notes version of vanlife.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

People deride this book for glamorizing the live and fate of Christopher McCandless. They point out how his pretentions, his lofty ideals, led him to make a fatal mistake. Fair enough, but despite his immaturity Christopher, at least, had ideals. He was his own person, for better or worse, he wasn’t some beige, cookie cutter person. Jon Krakauer clearly did his research and he brings Christopher back to life in this book. McCandless saw all the bullshit in our society, our obsessions with materialism and money, how we let our fears govern us; he made some stupid mistakes—a few that led to his death—but he was still wiser than most of us will ever be.

Thirst by Heather “Anish” Anderson

Anish was driven to break records on the Pacific Crest Trail. This meant averaging forty miles a day. This story puts you there, reads like (well written) diary, very viseral. It makes you want to plan hiking the PCT and alternately makes you never want to attempt it, all the peril that is faced including injuries and thirst. I went through a “reading about the PCT” phase and read half a dozen books about the hike; this is by far my favorite. You are there with Anish: Sweating. Aching. Feeling scared you might succumb to dehydration. First time I read it I could not put it down, had to call in sick to work the next day—it’s that compelling.

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

My best friend Mark leant this to me and it sucked me in like a good book does. This is all about competitive running. Again, it shows these great characters, people who are obsessive about distance running. I love stories like that, like Dirtbag, the story of mountaineer Fred Beckey. A lot of these people have no interest in a career, in even having a regular place to live, they just travel from running event to running event. They are brilliant at covering miles on foot, through pain and dehydration and everything else marathoners deal with; everything else is unimportant.

An additional recommendation: I watched this documentary last night called Mr. Jimmy. It’s about this Japanese man who made it his life’s work to replicate the work of Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page. Now…there are a lot of people who learned how to play Led Zeppelin’s songs, this guy takes it way behind working out the tunes on Houses of the Holy or Led Zeppelin IV. He has specially made pickups, goes over concert footage frame by frame to have Page’s outfits replicated. The attention to detail is, well, fucking mind blowing. All the energy, all the money, all the time—this guy makes impersonation an art form. If you enjoy streaming documentaries, I recommend it.

Looking for more non fiction book recommendations? I have three non fiction books for sale on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Books-Izaak-David-Diggs/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AIzaak%2BDavid%2BDiggs